Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Remarks were attributed to the Minister where he stated that in other countries there would be protests and demonstrations.

I spoke to a young family man last night off the Navan Road. He has two children and he just found out this week that his take-home pay has fallen by €350 a month. He asked me if the Government is serious about a property tax of €1,000. He has a modest three or four-bedroom semi-detached house. I said that any such move would the subject of a lengthy debate but that man is paying tax at a marginal rate of around 53%. If he is to pay a €1,000 property tax, he must earn more than €2,000. Is the Government serious about doing this? If the Minister's Commission on Taxation has a mandate to bring this forward, why can we not get the papers published so we can see the pros and cons of it?

The Minister knows from our constituency that some people bought high on expensive mortgages. In the Dublin area people very frequently have mortgages well over €200,000, in some cases €350,000 and maybe even more. They are in negative equity in a serious way. Hopefully most of them do not have to move and can keep up their mortgage payments. Many of those people are also in managed complexes where there is a property management charge, again payable out of their after-tax income. The Minister knows from our constituency that even in a house those property management charges range from €350 to €1,200 or €1,400. For an apartment it starts at approximately €1,800 and goes up to €2,500 and is nearly hitting €3,000. Again that is paid out of people's after-tax income. There is no regulation of what the developers, who have control of these managed apartments and property management companies, charge people.

Why does the Minister not publish the papers so we can have a realistic debate on what his commission, mandated by him, is thinking about? Large numbers of families are very nervous. They are reeling from the hit Fianna Fáil has delivered to them. I say Fianna Fáil because I do not know if the Green Party Ministers were awake during the discussion of the budget.

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